


down the backs of tabletops

by defcontwo



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 13:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6660709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Breakups are a kind of private war, Jack guesses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	down the backs of tabletops

Jack plays the Aces twice his rookie year. 

It's anticlimactic.

Kent only looks him in the eye a handful of times, always during face offs. And then, Kent just stares him down, blank and unseeing, like Jack could be anyone, any opponent in any city across North America. 

The first time, Jack lets it rattle him, and has to brace himself for the months of chirping and cyclical ESPN coverage when he slips up and slings a pass Kent's way, muscle memory taking over at the worst possible moment. 

The second time, Jack takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders, and waits for the puck to drop.

  


Wars are about people. That's what the guys at the Haus never did get, back when they used to chirp him about taking out documentaries from the Samwell Library.

Well. They still chirp him about that, but Nursey sends him a monthly rec list from his lectures anyways. 

It's not about the names and dates, not about the technology, not about artillery fire in the dead of a cold winter's night in Bastogne. 

Mostly, it's about the soldiers, with ashy faces and aching feet, and the decisions they make when they're clear out of options. 

It's about the politicians, too far away to see the view from the ground, and every advisor who's got something to say, who wants their name remembered long after they're gone. 

Mostly, war is about choices, and most of those choices are pretty shitty. 

Breakups are a kind of private war, Jack guesses. They can start out of nowhere, and end just as fast. 

Sometimes, though, they can take on a life of their own, dragging their heels to the finish long after both sides want to give up already. 

Jack looks across the blue line, at Kent standing stock still, gaze fixed firmly onto the flags during the singing of the national anthems, and reminds himself that even a war that lasted a hundred years figured out a way to end.

  


"Alright, one more thing before I let you two go -- I have to ask, since I've got you both here: is there anything you miss most about Rimouski?"

Sweat drips into Jack's eyes, and with the Falconers down by 1, he's itching to get back out there, not to stand under bright lights and answer questions with a Kent-shaped stranger. 

Kent pulls at his cowlick, long fingers tugging through wet hair, and grimaces, gaze fixed straight ahead at the camera. "Yeah, I guess there was this little cafe we used to sneak to on cheat days, uhhh - " 

"Josephine's," Jack says, and God, he hasn't thought of that place in years. Jack closes his eyes, opens them. Reminds himself where he is. "For the poutine." 

"Yeah, Josephine's," Kent says, the smallest hint of a smile curling at the edge of his lips. "Wasn't in our diet plan, huh?" 

"Nope," Jack says, and tells himself not to think of Kent's knee pressed close into his at the small cafe tables, elbow in his gut as they fought over the last fry. "Coach would've been pissed." 

The interviewer laughs, claps Kent on the shoulder. "Well, maybe whoever wins tonight owes the other a basket of poutine, then, eh?"

Jack shifts his feet from side to side, tries not to sigh. Kent's already turned to walk away, and all Jack can see is the angle of his jaw, the red at the tip of his ears. "Yeah, maybe."

  


"Hey, kiddo, I think your mom could use some help out in the greenhouse today, if you're feeling up to it."

Papa's quiet as he says it, soft-spoken and too kind, and merde, if Jack isn't really fucking tired of his parents treating him with kid gloves. 

He thought they were past all this, but they've slid all the way backwards in the month since --- Jack winces, tries to stop the thought in its tracks, 'since he broke up with Bittle,' but he can't, it rolls on anyways. 

Well. Jack guesses he can't blame them, exactly, if he looks half as miserable as he feels these days. 

Jack taps at the lip of his coffee mug once, twice. "Yeah, I can do that." 

And he can. Jack likes the simplicity of working in the greenhouse, likes the feel of dirt between his fingers and how it's useful, lugging pots of flowers to and fro, in a way that hockey never could be. 

It quiets his brain, for a while, gives him something simple to focus on, an easy goal to meet. Takes the same kind of patience that hockey does, only it makes him wait longer. 

But after, well. He's got to get out of this fucking house, can't imagine staying here all through the off-season, and staring down his parents' kind faces. Can’t seem to find the words to tell them that he’s not that boy, anymore, or maybe he is, maybe he’ll always be that boy, but that doesn’t mean they have to worry like they used to. 

Sooner or later, he’s got to figure out how to make his own life work. 

Jack is 26 years old. The Calder finally has his name on it, and he was a contender for the Art Ross all the way up until the end, when Joe Thornton edged him out. He likes his team, mostly, and there's an A on his chest that everyone thinks is getting turned into a C soon enough. 

He has an apartment in Providence that he's afraid to go back to. He's not sure what he'll do when he does; will he throw out all the sheets and get someone to replace every square inch of furniture, or will he press himself down into his bed and hope that the lingering scent of Bittle's apple and ginger conditioner never leaves it? 

This is the fucked up thing: 

Jack is 26 years old and he stands in his mother's greenhouse, wrist deep in a pot of peonies, wondering when he's going to start finally feeling like he's headed in the right direction. 

"Maman," Jack says, and then stops. 

"Yeah?" Maman says, from her perch on the wooden bench, the one he helped her paint years and years ago, back when he was twelve and it made sense to him, to make his mother's brand new bench Habs’ red, white and blue. The paint is faded, now, and it surprises him, that she's never bothered to go over it with something better. 

"I, uh," Jack says. "Tater's throwing a party at his house in the Hamptons next week. I was thinking I might go." 

He wasn't, actually. When Tater first pitched it to him, "beach party for 2016 Stanley Cup losers, heh," it sounded like the last thing Jack wanted to do. 

But now that he's put the idea of it out there, Jack finds himself warming to it. Tater is good company: weird but uncomplicated, and he does grill a mean steak. Tater's wife, a 5 foot even Olympic gymnast who won Gold for the US a while back, is even weirder. Jack likes them a lot. It'd be a nice change. Jack could use a change of pace, right this second. 

"Is -- " Maman starts, and then pauses, shaking her head. "Never mind. Don't forget to pack sunscreen and bring me back a seashell, sweetheart." 

Jack rolls his eyes, flings some dirt in her direction. "Sure thing, Maman."

  


Jack's been in love exactly twice in his life. Three times, if you count hockey, but these days, he really tries not to.

It was easy, with Bittle. It was a soft settling around his middle, a quietness in his heart and his head that he thought could last forever. 

It was easy, with Bittle, until it wasn't. 

This is the other fucked up thing: 

Jack didn't get it, with Kent. Didn't know what it was when he was feeling it. His brain was too full of too much that was brutal and unkind, and it blocked out every light as best it could. 

It wasn't until years and years later, that Jack could look back and tell himself, oh, right. Merde, but I was so in love with him. 

Jack never said it, never so much as thought it, not when it would've mattered. 

If there's one thing he would change about how things ended with Kent, it's that.

  


Jack rents a car at JFK, plugs the address of Tater's beach house into the GPS, and rolls down every window. _Born to Run_ was made for days like this, and Jack turns it up as loud as he dares.

The closer he gets to Tater's, the stronger the scent of the salt air gets, and something in Jack loosens, a long-forgotten reflex. He's always liked the Atlantic during summertime. 

Tater greets him at the door of a huge house, set back from the street and pushed right up against a private beach, and wraps Jack in a bear hug that's all arms. 

"Still gangly as ever, eh, Tater?" 

"Yana made spinach, maybe you finally grow big and tall, huh, Zimmboni?" Tater fires back, pairing it with a noogie that Jack tries and fails to get out of. 

"Touché," Jack says, holding both hands up in surrender. "Where is she? I'll go say hi." 

Tater waves one arm, cutting through the crowd of people that's milling all through the house, straight to the backyard. "Out back, playing beer pong." 

Jack pushes through the throng, but has to stop every few feet to say hi to someone new. It's mostly Falconers, new and old, with Snowy holding court over them all, and swearing up a storm. There are a couple of guys from other teams that Jack knows mostly by sight, and more surprising, a lot of people that Jack doesn't recognize at all. It's weird, how that comforts him, knowing that he doesn't have to talk about hockey tonight if he doesn't want to. 

Weird that he's here at all, too, but he's got a room at an inn a couple of miles north that he can bail to as soon as this gets to be too much. 

Right now, though, anything’s better than the empty spaces where Bittle’s chatter used to be. 

Jack pushes open the screen door and spills out into the backyard, only to come face to face with Yana and oh, that’s right. 

Tater used to be an Ace. 

“Uhhhh,” Jack says, and wishes that he had a drink in his hand, if only for something to hold onto. “Hey.” 

“Hey, Zimms,” Kent says. He must be Yana's beer pong partner, Jack guesses, from the way he’s leaning against the picnic table, pong ball in hand. 

He’s also wearing the shortest swim shorts that Jack’s ever seen on a man, in fire engine red, and a soft-looking grey hoodie that’s got both sleeves pushed up, and the zipper unzipped, making it pretty much useless for its intended purpose. 

Jack huffs a laugh, and thinks, _shit, he’s still so ridiculous._

“I hope your pong game has improved since Lardo kicked your ass. I know Yana has high standards,” Jack teases, accepting the half-hug that Yana gives him. 

“Well fuck you very much, Zimmermann,” Kent says, but he doesn’t look mad, exactly. Jack kind of expected him to be; he can't remember the last time they had anything resembling a friendly conversation, not one that wasn't forced by the NHL media apparatus.

But maybe that's part of the problem, right there. Can't get anywhere if you don't step one foot forward yourself.

Kent pushes his sunglasses to the top of his head, and stares for a beat, and then another, like he’s trying to figure out what Jack’s play is, here, and then finally, he shrugs. “I’m decent. Yana's better, she’ll carry us to victory and I’ll drink all the shitty Natty Light she’s too good for, huh?”

“It’s piss water,” Yana says, primly, re-arranging the solo cups on the table. “What’s the point? Go, Parser, find us new opponents to destroy.” 

Kent shoots out a sloppy salute. “Aye aye, captain. Later, Zimms.”

  


Jack lets himself get pulled into an argument or two on who he thinks will make the World Series this year, and then Olympic diving, and somewhere between two and three, Yana gets on her soap box to tell everyone what's what on this year's gymnastics competitions.

Jack loses sight of Kent in all of this, but he's sure they'll bump into each other again before the day is through. The thought doesn't overwhelm, like it used to. 

Jack's past the point where he fears every run-in with Kent will lead to some giant, blowout confrontation about their breakup. It could, but it doesn't have to. 

Not with the way Kent was looking at him earlier, with more curiosity than anything else. 

"Zimmboni," Tater says, sidling up to Jack, looking a little worse for wear, if his booze-glazed eyes are anything to by. Not all of Tater's homemade lemonade was alcohol-free, and Jack counts himself lucky that he didn't get the two confused. 

"Zimmboni, you red like lobster." 

"Merde," Jack says, reaching up to rub at his nose. He forgot sunscreen. "Maman will never let me hear the end of this." 

Tater jerks his head towards the house. "Second floor, first door on the left. Should be some sunscreen there." 

"Thanks, Tater," Jack says, waving him off, and heading into the house. The cooled, air conditioned house is a shock to the system, and that's when Jack really starts to feel it, that too-hot all over sensation paired with a weighted, happy exhaustion. He's probably red from head-to-toe at this point. 

The door to the bathroom is closed but Jack, sun-tired and sleepy, doesn't think anything of it which, really -- he should have, should have known better after four years at Samwell that a closed door during a party means something. 

But he doesn't know better, which is why he winds up with an eyeful of a burly, tattooed ginger defenseman for the Houston Aeros, whose name Jack can't remember to save his life. Probably because this guy's got Kent pressed up against the bathroom counter, and one hand down the front of Kent's tiny red shorts. And God, Jack knows that face, is intimately familiar with the helplessly dopey grin that crosses Kent's face when he's that close to the edge. 

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me," Kent groans, dropping his head forward onto the guy's shoulder. Wiggins, maybe. Wiggs for short? 

"Errrr," Jack says. "I'll just. Eh. Sorry."

Jack closes the door shut firmly, and just stares at it for maybe a minute or two longer than he should, and then runs away.

  


It was a shitty thing, what Jack did to Kent. It was a shitty thing and it was a necessary thing, and it's been hard, learning how to make the two halves of it live side by side in his head.

He should've called. Should've picked up the phone or written a letter or a postcard or anything, and said _I can't do this anymore. I'm sorry._

But Kent with his smart mouth and that chip on his shoulder, and those eyes that went a little too soft and a little too fond in ways that used to terrify Jack at eighteen, would've found a way to change his mind. Would've made Jack want to try, anyways, and he would've torn himself apart all over again in the process. 

What happens when one person goes to war, and the other refuses to so much as set foot on the battlefield in the first place? 

Well. Kent did some pretty shitty things, too.

Maybe they're about due for a truce.

  


It takes all of ten minutes for Kent to find him, ankle deep in sand and tucked away behind a tree, out of eyesight of the party.

Kent drops to a crouch next to him, and pulls up a fistful of sand. "So, uh. Hey." 

Jack nods. "Hey." 

"That was, uh. Uhhhh," Kent starts and then sighs, loudly, like the dramatic ass that he is, letting the sand fall out of his hand. "I just wanted you to know that, uh. That wasn't on purpose, you know? I didn't. I know that I'm like, pissed off at you easily 70% of the time but I didn't mean for that to happen." 

Jack blinks, and then winces. Wonders how long it's been, since he first started thinking the worst of Kent on reflex. Wonders when he stopped, too.

"That, uh. That actually hadn't occurred to me." 

"Oh," Kent says, and then he laughs, shaking his head. "God, I'm an idiot. Why do you look so freaked out, then?" 

Jack just turns and raises both eyebrows. "How would you feel if you caught me in a bathroom, getting a handjob from another guy?" 

Kent makes a face. "Point, Zimmermann." 

Jack nudges him in the side, and Kent's careful crouch topples him over into the sand. 

"Oh fuck you, Jack," Kent squawks. He runs both hands through his hair, but Jack's pretty sure that it does more to make his cowlick stand out than to shake all the sand out. 

Jack laughs. "Don't worry, I'm sure Wiggs still thinks you're pretty." 

"Everyone thinks I'm pretty," Kent says, huffily, righting himself to sit cross legged in the sand. "You think I'm pretty." 

Jack hums, because God knows he can't disagree with that. 

"It serious?" Jack doesn't have the right to ask, but does it anyways. "With Wiggs." 

"Fuck no," Kent says. "But uh." He laughs, but there's not a whole lot of humor to it. "I figure there was a line, you know. Between when it was okay to think that maybe you might take me back, and when it crossed over into pathetic and crazy, and I just blew right the fuck past it." 

"Kenny," Jack breathes out, but he doesn't. Doesn't know what else to say to that, except maybe 'I was the one who always kissed you back,' but it's too late for that to do either of them any good. 

"Anyways, uh," Kent says. Scrubs one hand across his face, and then lets it drop. "I'm figuring out how to have fun with it again, you know? Doesn't have to be all or nothing. Doesn't have to be serious if I'm not ready for it to be." 

Jack tries not to think of Bittle, and the slow, aching death of too many nights on the road and not enough time to say all the things he should’ve said. Jack didn’t know it was possible, before, to talk with someone every night for months on end, and never realize that you were having separate conversations entirely until it was way too late to track back, and fix it. 

Jack guesses that was the thing, with Kent. He always knew they were on different pages entirely. Always knew it was going to find a way to end. 

"Let me know the secret to that one when you figure it out, alright?" Jack jokes, and they can both see it for the lie that it is. That’s never going to be how Jack does things. 

Kent lets out a thin slip of a smile. "Deal. Anyways, you think I want to end up with another hockey player? Christ, Jack. Over my dead fucking body." 

Jack barks out a laugh, and doesn’t let himself look too closely at the small twinge in his gut that almost wants to protest. Not yet, anyways. 

This, right here. This small, shaky cease-fire is about all he can handle for now. It might be about all he can handle, period, but Jack’s learning a thing or two about timing these days. 

“Soooooo,” Kent says, drawing out the o, “you leaving tonight or are you sticking around?” 

There’s a soft hesitation in Kent’s voice, an invitation that Jack knows he could turn down, if he wanted to. 

But today, he doesn’t want to. 

“Yeah, I’ve got a room at an inn until Sunday. You’re not driving up to your parents’ place after this?” 

“Nah,” Kent says. “Wiggs has a house about twenty minutes from here, I’ll be around.” 

“You’re staying with him and he couldn’t keep his hands out of your pants for _half a day_?” Jack chirps. 

Kent waggles his eyebrows. “What, can you blame him?” 

Jack kicks sand at him. 

Kent kicks back, and kicks back even harder which, well. Jack probably should’ve seen that coming. 

“Yeah, well. There’s a place near his house that serves some pretty alright poutine,” Kent offers. “It’s not Josephine’s but I figure I owe you some, after that last loss.” 

Jack doesn’t brush the sand off his jeans and instead, digs his feet in deeper. “Yeah, I could do that. Long as you don’t elbow me for the last fry, this time.” 

“Whatever, Zimms,” Kent scoffs. “You always let me have it, anyways.” 

“Well, I was in love with you, so,” Jack says, all at once, and it’s seven years too late, sure, but Jack’s still not going to let himself regret saying it. 

Kent goes silent, and still, and for one very long minute, Jack doesn’t think he’s going to say anything at all, but then: “You massive fucking asshole, Jack Zimmermann. Guess I owe you the last fry many times over, then.” 

Jack leans into Kent’s shoulder, the cool evening wind a relief on his sunburned face, and smiles. “Guess so.”


End file.
